by Celia Kyle
After a tiring day of introducing her kids to the wonderful world of fractions, she’d stayed late for parent-teacher conferences. Most had gone well enough, but the rest… Well, no one liked to hear their precious little angel was actually a demon in disguise. Not that she could call any of the kids a demon. Mainly because the school didn’t want to be sued.
After several hours of placating helicopter moms and trying to engage disinterested dads, her head throbbed, her back ached, and a weird twitch in her eyebrow just would. Not. Stop. Now she was finally on her way home. And she had big plans once she arrived—a hot bath, a bottle of her favorite beer, a fresh tube of Pringles, and Hallmark movies until she passed out on her couch.
Rounding the last corner before home, she spied something that told her the relaxing night just wasn’t going to happen. She groaned and grumbled. “Aw, sugar!”
It wasn’t the swear word she wanted to use but working around a bunch of impressionable ten-year-olds all day had set the habit of using clean language, even when she didn’t need to. Better to sound silly to adults than get fired for cursing a blue streak in front of her class.
She pulled up behind Warren’s SUV, the vehicle parked diagonally in Chloe’s driveway and taking up as much space as physically possible. He hadn’t even left enough space for her to squeeze her small sedan in beside him. Muttering another fake curse word, she parked on the street in front of her rental house, killed the engine, and then simply sat and stared at her front porch. Spying Warren’s SUV made her exhaustion pull on her even harder than when she’d left school.
Warren sat in a chair on her porch, watching her sit in her car watching him. She had to admit he was a nice enough guy, and she couldn’t deny his good looks—tall, blond, and with the lithe body of a swimmer. Warren Edgecomb was any woman’s—or she-wolf’s—dream.
Almost, anyway.
Despite his interest in her since they were pups, Chloe had never encouraged the pack’s beta. She had no idea why he seemed so fixated on her, but it wasn’t going to happen. Ever. She had no intention of dating him, or anyone else for that matter. He should have figured that out after many years, but the guy was persistent. She had to give him that.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, she grabbed her overloaded messenger bag and willed her body to get out of the car. At her approach, Warren gave her a hopeful smile and a little wave, then he hurried forward to help her with her bag.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” She side-stepped him.
“Okay.” He fell in step with her. “Late night for a teacher, eh?”
“Parent-teacher conferences.” Chloe sighed. “No offense, Warren, but why are you sitting on my porch in the middle of the night?”
That smile faltered, and a twinge of guilt over hurting his feelings prodded her in the stomach. But how many times did a girl need to be polite before she was allowed to get cranky? Whatever the answer, Warren recovered quickly.
“Your brother’s inside. Needs to talk to you.”
“Good gravy, could this night get any longer?” she groused as she stepped past him into her home and then closed the door in his face.
Two steps into her house and she froze in place. Her entryway table—usually home to her huge messenger bag—was askew, the vase stuffed with silk orchids knocked on its side and the ancient answering machine smashed on the tile floor. No, not smashed… stepped on.
What the heck?
“Zeke!” she called out as she dropped her bag to the ground. “Where are you and what the heck did you do to my answering machine?”
“In here! And who has an answering machine in this day and age anyway?”
“I do!” She followed his voice to her living room. Her brother was sprawled on her couch watching her TV eating her Pringles and drinking her beer. Rude! She opened her mouth to snarl at him, but he held a finger up to her, making her wait until Judge Judy rendered her verdict.
Chloe glared daggers at her brother, but he was too busy chuckling at Judy’s final biting remarks. Of course, brushed off by her brother, she had the lovely opportunity to spy something out of place in her home.
Sarcasm, she had it.
In the far corner, behind the brightness of the TV, sat a man. A handsome man. The most handsome man she’d ever seen in real life. Early thirties, with tidy brown hair, eyes the color of the sea during a storm, and a lean body that just begged to be jumped. The sight of him set her heart pounding. He sat perfectly still, watching her intently in a hard, straight-backed chair that she recognized from her dining set.
Wait. She squinted into the dimness. Scratch that. He wasn’t sitting in the chair. He was tied to it!
Zeke muted the TV and Chloe didn’t wait for him to say a word. Instead, she turned on him. “What the holy heck is this!”
“Now, Chloe, don’t panic.” Zeke’s voice was calm but the bouncing of his attention between her and the crazy-hot wolf in the corner said something different.
Panic wasn’t exactly the emotion taking first place in Chloe at the moment. No, it was something decidedly more… delicious.
Out of nowhere, she caught the scent of the stranger—deep musk with a hint of fire and sweetness—and it nearly bowled her over with its strength. A powerful wave of animalistic magnetism woke her all-but-dormant wolf. She usually kept it shackled and controlled but nothing could stop the beast now. Her body and her wolf responded to him in a way she didn’t like, not one little bit. It reminded her of how others had described their physical reaction to finding their fated mate.
But that wasn’t possible. Not for her. Not ever. Not for a million reasons.
Ignoring the way her wolf howled to be set free so they could get down and dirty with the guy—a guy she’d never seen before in her life!—she rounded on Zeke.
“Excuse me, but why the fudge is there a strange man tied up in my house?” she snarled at her big brother. She was the only person in the pack with the brass ovaries to stand up to the alpha.
Zeke gave her a warning look. “Listen, woman—”
Chloe cut him off. “Oh, don’t even start with that alpha bull-hockey, Ezekiel Sasha Soren!” She pointed at the captive wolf, unable to stop herself from staring at the sexy male. “Explain yourself!”
Zeke raked a hand through his scruffy brown hair and then brought his palm to his cheek, rubbing the bristles. Like a chastened pup, he stared at the ground, refusing to look at Chloe. “Fine,” he grumbled. “That’s the Blackwood pack’s healer. Dr. Drew Cooper.”
Damn, even his name sounded like an old-time movie star’s. She almost sighed like a lovesick teenager sitting in the front row of an old movie house, gazing up at her handsome idol on the big screen. Instead, she tore her gaze from the handsome Dr. Cooper to kill her brother with a scowl. Didn’t work.
“Is that somehow supposed to explain what’s going on here? Why is he tied to a chair?”
“We had to… encourage him to come with us.”
“You mean you kidnapped him.” Chloe wasn’t sure who he was trying to fool with his lie.
Zeke grimaced. It was all the answer she needed.
“So, to be clear, you tied him to my kitchen chair? In my living room? In my house?”
“Sorry, sis. Needed to make sure he didn’t escape while I was watching Judge Judy.”
Right.
Chloe glanced at the guy again and nearly fell into those eyes. Those stormy, mesmerizing eyes.
“It’s just for tonight.” Zeke’s plea drew her back into the cruddy situation he’d dragged her into. “I’ll have him out of here first thing tomorrow.”
The mere thought of the man leaving her home filled her heart with dread, but she pushed aside the irrational emotion and focused on her anger.
“No. Absolutely not.” She folded her arms over her chest to show Zeke she meant business. “Don’t you dare put me in the middle of pack drama. I haven’t really been a part of the pack in years. Why drag me into this sugar now?”
Zeke looked ir
ritated and hurt at the same time. “Really? Chloe, you may have gone off on your own, but you’re just as much a part of the Soren pack as I am.”
“Cheese and crackers, Zeke! You and Warren need to pull your heads out of your backsides and stop pretending like anyone else besides you two want me around. I accepted it a long time ago. It’s about fudging time you did, too.”
“Sis—“
“No. Take this guy, whoever he is, and stash him at the pack house. Anywhere but here. Better yet, I have an idea. Let him go!”
“But Chloe—“
She fixed him with her don’t fudge with me glare. “I’m serious. I’ve built a nice little life outside the pack. I have a job I love and students who respect me. I don’t exactly relish the idea of being sent to a human prison. Or being executed by the NRC for my involvement in whatever the holy heck this is.” She didn’t care if her next words came out with an annoying whine. “Just take him to the pack house, okay?”
Zeke mumbled something she didn’t quite catch.
“What?”
He sighed heavily and repeated himself. “I can’t. I can’t take him to the pack house, okay? It’s the first place they’ll look for him.”
A chill rippled down her spine. “They?” she repeated slowly, her anger intensifying to critical levels. “Who, may I ask, are they?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze until he caught the glimmer of amusement in Dr. Cooper’s eyes. Then Zeke slipped into alpha mode and puffed out his chest. “There’s a slight chance the Blackwood pack is on their way here to declare war.”
Chloe gaped at her brother, fury rising from her belly into her throat, almost choking her. “Are you joking? Oh god, tell me this is some stupid, cruel practical joke.”
Zeke stepped forward and grabbed her, effectively keeping her from sneaking peeks at the doctor. Her brother held her gaze, as only an alpha could. As furious as she was, Chloe was powerless to look away.
“Chloe, this is important.”
She sensed the truth in his words, but more than that, she could smell his desperation. Very little could move Zeke to that particular end of the emotional spectrum. Pretty much only family, as far as she’d ever seen. Her eyes widened as the thought took her down a rabbit hole.
“Why, Zeke?” she whispered, not daring to let herself hope. “Why is it so important?”
“He’s going to cure Mom.” Zeke shot a look at the man over her head and added a touch of gravitas to his next words. “Whether he wants to or not.”
Without waiting for her permission, hope flared bright and hot in her chest. Slowly she joined Zeke in staring at Dr. Cooper, her heart tripping over itself at the sight of him. He sat perfectly still—not struggling against his restraints in the slightest—and stared straight at her. Even Zeke’s alpha scowl didn’t affect him. He had nerves of steel and Chloe wondered if the rest of him would be just as hard.
If she pressed Zeke, she knew he’d relent and find another hidey-hole to stash the man, but she surprised herself by not wanting Dr. Drew Cooper out of her sight. She wanted him to stay with her that night, maybe longer. Maybe forever and ever, amen.
But not before he cured their mother.
A lovesick sigh finally escaped her lips as she said the only word her brain could form. “Okay.”
Chapter Three
Drew remained silent through what would have otherwise been a hilarious sibling argument—if his kidnapping hadn’t been the cause. It wasn’t that he was afraid. He knew Zeke Soren wanted—no, needed—him, and Drew hadn’t sensed any kind of deception on the alpha’s part. Not that an alpha couldn’t lie and get away with it, but Drew trusted the man to stay true to his word.
No, he’d initially been stunned into silence when Zeke’s sister came home and read the alpha the riot act. A brazen move against Zeke, even by a sibling. Where he sat, all the way across the room, Drew was warmed with the heat of her fiery spirit, touching him in surprising ways—and places.
That was when her scent had hit him. From that moment on, he hadn’t been able to tear his gaze away from her. And by the way she’d kept straining to steal peeks at him with those big blue eyes of hers, she’d had the same reaction to his musk. They were both old enough to know exactly what that meant. That drive to bathe in another’s scent, the need to touch and be touched by that one person, the craving for the feel of the other’s skin on their own.
They were mates. Drew knew it in his bones.
When Zeke and his thugs had hustled him into the house, he’d caught her intriguing scent and his wolf had sat at attention. However, it wasn’t until she’d walked into the living room that everything clicked into place. What were the odds that the sister of the man who’d kidnapped him would end up being his freaking mate? It didn’t make sense in the slightest, but there it was.
Guess they’re called “fated” mates for a reason, he thought as he drank in every inch of her. She was average height, but that was the only thing average about the woman. Where her brother’s hair was brown with glints of copper shimmering through, hers was full-on red. Not dyed red, but a luscious, warm color that reminded him of autumn leaves. Her soft face radiated confidence and, despite her hot temper, a sweetness that was impossible to fake. The rest of her… Well. Drew did his best to hide the effect her curves had on him, thinking of anything but what her silken skin would feel like beneath his palms, and fought not to grow hard beneath her watchful eyes.
He was in a delicate situation and his wolf wanted to be anything but subtle. Drew was a man of science, a healer. He held on to that with both hands while corralling his inner beast. Maybe when this was over, and he’d claimed Chloe as his mate, he’d thank Zeke for kidnapping him. For the moment, he needed to keep his wits about him. If the alpha’s mother’s life was on the line, one misstep could prove fatal and end his mating before it began.
“Okay?” Zeke coughed, staring at his sister with surprised eyes.
Without another word, Chloe crossed the room with steps so loaded down with anger the wooden floors trembled. Her sapphire eyes blazed with fury—not at Drew, he knew instinctively, but at her brother. He’d barely met her and yet his heart filled with pride. She was strong and assertive, and she didn’t take shit from anyone, not even her alpha. It was safe to say, he liked her. A lot.
And his admiration wasn’t simply a byproduct of instinct. When she stopped in front of him and jammed her fists onto her hips—looking just like Wonder Woman, only without the costume…damn it—he felt something new. Something different.
It was as if he was seeing more than he was supposed to. Or maybe it was exactly what he was supposed to see, but only him. Her wide, slightly confused eyes told him she was feeling the same thing. It was almost as if a bolt of electricity arced between them, leaving their nerves frayed and their psyches dazed.
He tasted emotions that weren’t his own—indignation, fear, stress, and one that caught him completely off-guard. Alienation. Like she didn’t feel as if she belonged, that no one—besides her brother—truly cared for her. It was all Drew could do to suppress the urge to break free of his restraints, close the small distance between them, and show her how wrong she was.
“Can you really cure my mom?” she asked. “Or is Zeke talking out of his backside, as usual?”
“Hey!” her brother protested, but they both ignored him.
No one else existed for Drew.
“As I told him already, I’ll do everything I can to help.” Drew kept his tone even and professional. “Whether I’m successful is another matter entirely.”
Chloe’s jaw clenched as she whirled around to face Zeke again. “What kind of animal are you? You tied up a man who agreed to help us? Mom would be ashamed.”
Zeke glowered, as if he knew the truth of the statement. “He’s a flight risk. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
He shrugged and unmuted the end of Judge Judy, the winner and loser speaking their minds to the cameras. Drew almost felt Chloe’s last s
traw snapping in half. She stomped over and snatched the remote from his hand, hit the power button, and pointed to the door.
“Out!”
“Aww, sis—“
“Get the fudge out of here, right this instant!”
As she stomped back over to Drew, he couldn’t help but smile at her use of curse word alternatives. That, combined with her refusal to take shit and her commanding presence, hinted she was a teacher. He couldn’t say why, but he loved that.
She knelt down and worked at the knots holding Drew to the chair. The slightest brush of her fingers against his wrists sent columns of fire blazing through his body. By the sound of her quick breaths, she felt the same. Zeke, on the other hand, was clueless about their connection. Thankfully.
“Don’t untie him, Chloe!”
She fixed another hard look on him. “He’s going to help our mother, Zeke. He should be treated like a guest, not a prisoner. Shame on you, Ezekiel. Shame.”
Chloe was definitely a Southern woman through and through. Shit was getting serious! Best of all, it worked.
Zeke looked stung by her words and hung his head a little. He scratched the back of his head and sighed heavily. “God, you’re impossible. Fine, treat him like he’s at the fucking Four Seasons for all I care, but Newman and Rich will be right outside, just in case.”
“As long as it’s not Warren,” she grumbled, releasing the last knot that bound Drew.
Zeke was already halfway to the door and either didn’t hear or didn’t care. The door slammed behind him, echoing his displeasure at being admonished by his little sister in front of a prisoner. That was unheard of, by any pack’s standards.
Drew, on the other hand, fought a losing battle against a sudden flare of jealousy. He was pretty sure Warren was the name of the guy driving the getaway car—Zeke’s beta. Who was he to Chloe? Her ex? Had he touched her the way Drew ached to explore her?
